Come Back, You'll See
by hardly loquacious
Summary: Will and Mac are used to arguing. They're always arguing. But sometimes an argument isn't about what you think it is. Mild spoilers for S2 (promos and a stray comment in an interview)


A/N: So, this just came to me before I went to bed last night. I'm somewhat blocked on the many things I'm supposed to be writing, so I just gave in and wrote this instead. It was fun. I hope you enjoy it. Very mild spoilers for S2 (based on promos and a stray comment in an interview).

Come back you'll see

xxx

"Oh the numbers aren't _that_ bad!" Mackenzie yelled, waving her arms for emphasis as the two of them squared off against each other from opposite sides of Will's office.

Will stared at her in disbelief. He knew she refused to live in the real world, but this was ridiculous. "A twenty-five percent drop!" he snapped. "A twenty-five percent drop in a month, and showing no signs of recovery."

"It's the summer," Mac said with a wave of her hand. "People are watching less TV. You're making a mountain out of a molehill."

"People watching less TV doesn't explain changes in _relative popularity, _Mac," Will growled at her. "It doesn't explain how I've slid from second to third most popular cable news anchor, Mac. Hell, at once point I was _fourth_."

"Well, then wouldn't that mean you're rebounding?" Mac asked, trying to lighten the mood. "So we had a couple of slow weeks. The show was good, _is _good. We make a good show, Will. And that should matter more than..."

"Hey, Crazy Lady!" Will yelled, interrupting what was now an oft heard speech. He could practically recite it by now, and he was becoming less and less convinced of its truth by the day. "I know you like to live in Pie-in-the-sky, America, but the rest of us have to actually care about things like the realities of the industry we choose to work in."

"I _understand_ the realities of the industry I work in," Mac assured him. "I just choose not to let them interfere with making a good show."

"A good show by whose standards?" Will demanded. "Apparently not those of the American people! Not anymore at least."

"Well, then I guess we'll need to educate them," Mac countered.

"We've been _educating_ them for months now," Will bit back.

Mac didn't back down. "Look, we've had slow spots before..."

"Not like this!" Will interrupted.

"Casey Anthony," Mac spat out, the name still making her shudder a bit on the inside.

"We caved!" Will reminded her with a yell.

"Not forever," Mac said stubbornly, mentally hanging onto the moment where he'd done her proud. Where he'd renewed her faith in... in... well, everything. "And the numbers rebounded anyway."

"Mac!" Will shouted.

But Mac was well used to shouting back. "Will!" Then she sighed. "Look, I know things haven't been great. I know the last few months have been difficult..."

"Difficult?" he asked incredulously. "_Difficult?"_

"But if you would just let me finish..." she said loudly. "If you would just listen to me for one second..."

That was when something in Will really snapped. _"Are you taking the job in California?" _

Mac wasn't sure if it was the shock of the question itself or the hint of genuine panic she saw behind his yes, but he stopped her argument in its track.

Will misinterpreted her full-body freeze as something else. "Yes, I heard about that," he said, protecting himself with sarcasm (though he didn't do as good a job of it as he thought he had).

Mac took a tentative step towards him, hoping to reassure. "Billy..."

But by then the mask was back in place. "It's a good offer, Mackenzie," he said neutrally. "Bringing intellectual news to Hollywood. It's a bit of a niche market to be sure, but it has potential. I bet there's enough rich people there who like to be able to pretend that they actually give a damn about fixing some of the country's problems to keep you comfortable for a while."

Mac stopped moving towards him, raising an eyebrow instead. "Since when do I care more about my own comfort than the news?"

Her quiet question floored him. At least temporarily. Will recovered quickly though, not quite willing to believe the voices in the far corners of his brain that were telling him that she had a point. And anyway, even if she didn't care about her own comfort, there were about a thousand places she could go that were at least equally far, and also far less comfortable (in fact, she'd already gone to some of those places). So Will managed to convince himself that he wasn't the one who needed to back down. "I take it you're still in the preliminary stages of negotiations, then."

Mac's expression turned hard. "You should know better than most that some offers are never serious."

Now it was his turn to walk towards her, slowly, dangerously. "I know that this one was, right from the start, Mackenzie. And so do you."

Mac tilted her chin up in defiance. She was not afraid of him, or any of his... tactics."Serious on both sides?"

Will was almost right in front of her now, glaring down at the angry woman in front of him. "I would never _dream_ of speaking for you."

Mac had a sudden urge to hit him. Or maybe just to stamp her foot and scream in frustration. And tear out her hair. And his too, while she was at it. "But you should at least know that it's an offer from a cosmetic show purporting to be a serious broadcast, _and_ that you can trust me to know the difference. You do trust me, don't you?"

Will hesitated, more out of habit than anything else, but it was too late. He watched the woman in front of him deflate.

"Right," she muttered.

In that second, Will had never hated himself more. And then he hated her for even having to ask the question. He searched for the words, any words, that might help fix it. "Come on Mac, you know I trust you."

She glanced up hopefully.

"You _know_ I trust you with the show," he said to her. "When you were gone, I barely had an EP last three months. Went through like fifteen in two years. I'm not sure I even remember all of their names!"

"Course you don't," Mac muttered under her breath, his attempts at reassurance not exactly what she'd been hoping to hear. But then, she was used to that.

Will took a step forward. "My point is, I trust your voice in my ear," he said softly. And he heard it in his head more often than he was comfortable admitting to. And he wasn't just talking about during the show.

"Fine, so you trust me professionally," Mac summarized bluntly.

And Will suddenly realized that maybe he hadn't done quite as good a job explaining things as he'd thought he had. He tried to find other words to explain what he'd meant, better words. He realized he should have told her that she was his best friend and most trusted colleague. That she was one of about three people on the planet that he did actually trust.

But when he looked like he was going to argue with her, Mac overrode him, poking an angry finger into his chest with each sentence. "I can work with that," she told him, her voice rising as she picked up steam. "I can_. _And if you do trust me, at least professionally, then you should also know that I'd rather do a good show, a useful show, _our_ show, for a hundred people on YouTube rather than abandoning the ship for greener, _cushier_ pastures. God! In your head, one minute I'm the impractical idealist, the next I'm moving halfway across the damn country to live in the lap of luxury spoon-feeding the rich and famous. Do you hear yourself sometimes? Do you actually _listen _to the words coming out of your mouth? Jesus, Will! I just... I can't..."

And suddenly, the fight just drained out of her again. She let the finger poking into his stomach a few inches above his navel drop, her shoulders drooping with it, and her gaze falling off to the side.

"Mac?" he said tentatively, wishing she'd just keep talking.

Will watched her swallow, try to rally her strength, live to fight another day. And for the second time in less than five minutes, he hated himself for what he did to her.

When she finally looked up at him again, her eyes were sad. "Only thing is," she said, her voice gentle (which was somehow worse than when she'd been screaming at him). "I can't force you."

That floored him. _"What?"_ he barked.

Mac smiled weakly. Will wished she hadn't made the effort because the pain behind it physically hurt him. "I can't force you to care about the same things. I can't force you to do this show," she explained. "Our show. The show I want to do, and I thought you did... It doesn't matter. I can't... I can't wait forev... " She closed her eyes, trying to steady herself. "I need a partner, Will. I need you to work _with_ me. Willingly, Billy. I can't keep on..." She paused again, shaking her head. She couldn't look at him right now, couldn't quiet face him. "Sometimes I wonder too, is all."

"I know," he said, his voice hoarse.

She nodded once, seeming to accept that. "Okay."

"Okay," he repeated, unsure of what else to say.

Mac looked up at him again, stubborn fire back behind her eyes. "I'm not going to let it stop me."

No, she wouldn't, he thought to himself. She was terrifying sometimes. Terrifying and fucking brilliant. And about a million times braver than he'd ever be, in just about every way. "I know," he assured her. She'd never stop. At least he hoped not. (Part of him had to cling to her bravery.)

Mac almost laughed, even though nothing was funny. "Well, then I guess there's nothing more to say."

This time he was the one to reach into her personal space, wrapping his fingers around her wrist. "Wait."

Mac glanced down at their almost-joined-hands briefly, obviously surprised.

And it was Will's turn to hesitate. "We need to talk about this."

Mac's expression shifted from surprised and vaguely confused to downright shocked.

Will tried to clarify. "We need to talk about, well... Oh fuck. Maybe we need to just sit down and brainstorm ways of doing a show that's both good _and_ popular."

Mac cocked her head to the side, obviously trying to decide if he was serious. "Thought you didn't believe that was possible?"

He tried not to get annoyed. "What do you think we've been doing for the past two years? Or at least trying to."

"And you want to organize a _brainstorming session_," Mac said slowly, trying the idea on for size.

Will threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "We have a staff, don't we? Fuck! We've got to do something."

Mac continued to watch him. "I'm not drawing a brainstorming map," she said eventually. "I've always hated those things."

"_Fine!"_ Will snapped. "I don't give a damn how we do it. Hell, it can be you, me and maybe Charlie in an office with a bottle of scotch if you want. Just _something._"

To Will's surprise, Mac smiled at him. "You need to stop caring so much about the ratings, remember? You just need to care about the show."

And with that, Will finally just exploded. "_Don't you get it?_ If there are no ratings, there is no show! There's no show, Mac! There's no reason for you and I to... If there are no ratings, then _we_ can't..."

This time he was the one to break off midway through a sentence.

Mac stared at him, eyes wide. "Will?" she whispered.

He turned and stared determined out the window. "All I'm saying is that you might not get a fucking choice about that job in California." She'd get another job, and he wouldn't. The disgraced anchor that nobody wanted to listen to anymore. And she'd pack up and move across the country, because people still wanted to hear from her.

Mac just stared at him, finally realizing that maybe (_maybe_) this was a little more than just Will losing some of his imaginary friends. That maybe there were other things tangled up in it. The idea made her heart beat fast. She watched him for another moment before deciding to just ignore the fact that every word of his body language was ordering her away, trying to keep her at arm's length. Instead, she shifted her entire body into his personal space (slowly, so as not to spook him), and slid a hand up his chest to his shoulder. Then she waited for him to look at her.

When he finally did, she spoke. "There's always a choice, Billy."

And with that, the wall he'd been trying to hold up between them crumbled, just a little, and he reached an arm around her waist. With a sigh, Mac wrapped her other arm around his neck and buried her head against his chest.

Will wasn't quite sure what they were doing, or how on earth it had happened, but he didn't let her go. Losing his viewers was terrifying enough; losing... anything else, was downright unbearable.

So he let himself hold on.

"Will," Mac muttered into his shoulder a few moments later.

"Hmm?" he murmured back, running his hand up and down along her hip, knowing he should let her go, but hoping he could get away with keeping her for a little while longer.

"If it came right down to it, would you choose the ratings or would you choose... well, us?" Mac asked before freezing almost imperceptibly. "The newsroom I mean," she said quickly.

Will paused, but only slightly, the meaning of her originally unfinished question more than finishing itself. And with her in his arms, the voices in his head yelling at him that his nameless viewers, that people like lollipop_lollipop, were all that he had and that all that he would ever have, didn't seem to be yelling quite so loudly anymore. And even if the voices might only be quiet for a little while, and even if he still wasn't sure how much of the problem was an inability to forgive and how much was fear (that he'd never really be enough, not for forever, and that was why it hadn't worked and wouldn't work), the answer to her question was still an easy one. "I guess if we did have to go the YouTube route, foolproof backup plan by the way, at least we'll have Sampat to help us with the technological issues. Or maybe just set up the account. Although, do you really only think we'd rate 100 viewers? Out of the entire internet?"

Mac's eyes lit up in a kind of joy Will hadn't seen in a while. Quiet and uncertain, but it was there. Mostly he felt it in the way her hands suddenly clenched in his jacket.

She swallowed, trying to keep her voice from trembling. "Well, maybe two hundred."

Will ordered himself to breathe normally. "Well, in that case..."

To his surprise Mac actually laughed at his feeble attempt at a joke, reaching up to brush a piece of hair that had fallen over his forehead off to the side. "You're a good man, Will McAvoy," she said softly. "I just wish you could see that."

He didn't bother telling her that he was only good when she was around (and only then because he was still perpetually trying to impress her). That would only confuse the issue. Besides, it was days like today that reminded him that someday, maybe, things might be different. "You're a good EP, Mackenzie," he said instead, knowing it was inadequate.

Her sad smile told him that she knew it too. "Charlie says I'm the best."

He pulled her back into a hug, silent confirmation in the way he moulded her to him. "And you're my EP?" he murmured against her ear.

He felt the gasp against his chest more than heard it. "Of course," she whispered, sad that he'd even needed to phrase it as a question.

Will pulled back, and stepped away awkwardly, knowing it was time, that he really couldn't stretch it out any longer anymore. Looking slightly to the right, he ran a hand through his hair, trying to steady himself. "Then let's go make our show."

He could feel Mac watching him, so he finally met her eyes.

She nodded, apparently satisfied by what she saw. "Let's go make our show," she repeated. She held his gaze for a moment before half-turning her body towards the door. "I should go talk to Jim. See you at the rundown meeting?"

Will found a half a smile to send her then. "See you at the rundown meeting." He waited until she was standing in the doorway to finish his sentence, "Partner."

Mac's hand stilled momentarily in the doorframe, but she didn't stop, the single glimpse of a smile she had to bite her lip to tamp down on, the only indication that she'd heard him.

Will decided maybe it was enough.

For now.

But they needed to figure it the fuck out, and sooner rather than later, because if they didn't then maybe they were going to lose everything.

And Mackenzie wasn't the only one who needed her partner.

xxx

The End


End file.
